Happy Birthday Filippo! What are you like 638 years old now? I got you a couple gifts to celebrate your birthday this year. The first gift is a crane! I know how hard it was to build the dome atop the Cathedral of Florence. So I hope this will make it easier for you to lift materials and people to the top of the cathedral. Even though you had invented your own crane to lift materials up, I think this electric powered crane will help you greatly. Your concept on how to construct the dome was brilliant! Using an octagonal base really helped form a sturdy foundation. Using sandstone and marble for the inner part of the dome really helped make it lighter than using concrete or flying buttresses to support the concrete. After all, the recipe for concrete had been lost in the Dark Ages so I guess you had to come up with a new way to make it. Using a brick exterior really helped the dome stay intact throughout the years and through the constant changing weather. Clever how you figured out how to construct the first ever octagonal base without using a wooden frame for support. Your plan has prevented the dome from collapsing in on itself after all these years and is still used when domes are built. It was also great how you silenced your doubters when making the lantern that sits at the top of the dome. Even though you died before you could finish it, you would be happy if you could see it today. Your friend did a good job completing it for you.
The second gift I got for you is a new boat that is modified and upgraded compared to your boat design. Although your design for Il Badalone was great at the time and receiving the first patent ever for it, it still could use improvements so that it doesn’t sink in the river like that time when you lost your slabs of marble in the Arno River that you were going to use to make a sculpture for the Medici family. This boat is much sturdier and will last you years. Now you don’t have to worry about losing materials in the river and can use it to make even more magnificent sculptures and architectural designs.
There’s no way to forget who you are because of the sculpture of you outside the Palazzo dei Canonici in the Piazza del Duomo. It is a great sculpture of you looking thoughtfully at your greatest accomplishment. It is still the largest masonry dome in the world! A very crowning achievement! I hope you enjoy these gifts as I hope they speed up your process when building and transporting and I hope to see you soon.
Your friend,
Manan Patel
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/media/duomo/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Brunelleschi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Cathedral
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/florence-duomo
The Birthday Blog 
Great choice of details and visuals that capture Brunelleschi’s creativity as well as the scope of his work. The anecdote about the boat sinking in the River Arno adds an interesting human element. And finally, the sculpture “looking thoughtfully” upward at the dome of the cathedral brought closure to an enjoyable read!
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I will always find his architectural achievments to be amazing. The fact that he came up with all of these methods to create such beautiful buildings is beyong me. I wonder what he would have built with the technology we have today.
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I love his schematic for the boat. It is really well done. I wish he could have been in our era building boats.
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Great gifts!imagine if he was still around the things he would build or even build new machines for a better easier future now a days.
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Your gifts are awesome, the crane is a great idea! I only wonder how they will power it since electricity hadn’t been invented yet.
I also wonder if they ever were able to retrieve the marble block from the river? If not, I wonder if it’s still there or if it has been worn away by nature?
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Oh, wow! First of all, I never knew that concrete was invented a long time ago! I thought it was fairly recent. I think your blog is really good at showcasing how cool Brunelleschi’s dome and how he was innovating enough to create something like that. it’s also really interesting that you mentioned how Brunelleschi transported his building material by boat in a river. Just one quick tip for next time: the anecdote of him losing his materials for a commission is really interesting and I’m sad that you didn’t elaborate on that. If you had, if would have fleshed out your blog post even more! But overall, nice job. 🙂
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Pretty interesting gifts. It seems like he has a skill in architecture and would probably have been really good at it in this time.
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I feel like he would’ve really appreciated these gifts. The background on the concrete and his boat designs is pretty interesting.Nice job.
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I feel like Brunelleschi would be completely fascinated with both gifts just trying to figure out the inner workings of each one of them. Great ideas!
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What beautiful pictures that you included. I would love to be able to go and visit the Roman Cathedral. It’s really sad that he didn’t live to see the end of his finish product. It’s really neat how in modern arcitecture today you will see that the use of concrete is very popular in housing design. He defiantly gave the art of working with concrete and stone materials a much better reputation. Without his work today many iconic concrete structure’s wouldn’t exist. Millions of people travel to Italy each year to be able to have the opportunity to see the incredible work out artist’s like Brunelleschi’s. I wonder what his thought’s would be on the way that his friend complete his major project for him? Would he like is or not be a fan of it? That would be interesting to see.
Great Job!
Ashley Stephen
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Nice big gifts.I think Brunelleschi might actually use them as models to master or better his inventions. Awesome work!
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Brunelleschi is an example of the kind of engineers that we still need in the world today. He had a passion for fitting things together and making a master piece out of it. Even if his work is outdated today we still admire it for the impeccable details, and incredible design. I believe with with the gift of the boat maybe he would of had more time to finish the Roman dome. That would have been cool to see. I think this quote really explain Filippo’s thinking…
He was a master with using what he could to create art around him. He used materials like brick and stone that were more time consuming, but his personality was patient enough and he was bright enough to know how incredible and well worth the time it would be to make the Roman Dome.
“A true painter must be able to paint in every style known to man, otherwise he’s just a craftsman benefiting from the faculties of art for his own good.”
-Filippo Brunelleschi
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Great gifts, mostly the first one! Also really interesying all the things he made.
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Nice job. I like that you gave him a crane, I’d really like to see what he’d be able to accomplish using the tools we have at our disposal today. I also didn’t know he re-discovered concrete, that’s very cool.
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You did a wonderful job depicting Brunelleschi. Your gifts are awesome and would make him even more awesome. He was an artist ahead of his time, and you’d help him accomplish this. The textbook portrayed him in vague detail, I’m very glad I could learn more about him personally from your post. Thank You!
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